Dither fish for L066 Breeding river tank

[Easystreet]

Hello,

I am wondering if a dither fish is needed for my breeding trio of L066? I am building a new tank just for breeding, and because I like to build tanks. In their current tank I have penguin tetras as well as a trio of breeding Apistogrammas. My L066's have attempted to breed in this set up on 4 different occasions. I have had zero survivors. I would find fry generally in the mouths of the Apistos or the penguin tetras. I dont know if they were the killers or if they picked them up when they were already dead. My conclusion is to get them out of there and into their own tank.

The problem is I have read that even Pleco's require dither fish. If I put my 3 L066 in a 40g breeder with 12x one direction water flow without any other fish will they continue to breed? Or do I need to add a school of Danio's or Barbs? What other kinds of fish can I add as middle to top water dwelling dither fish that will be ok in the water flow and are small enough not to eat all the fry?

My main goal is breeding the L066.

Thanks,
Jason

[apistomaster]

Hi Jason,
L66 nor any other pleco spp needs any company. I usually have a cherry shrimp colony in most of my pleco and dwarf Corydoras permanent set ups. Most were added deliberately and others hitch hiked in on plants from another tank. I actually like keeping Cherry shrimp with them because they are pretty good at cleaning up bits of food the Hypancistrus missed. You can't go wrong with small shrimp. Fresh dead shrimp are eaten by the Hypancistrus.

I guess if I were the one choosing I would keep 5-7 Silver Hatchets or one of the Nannostomus spp of Pencilfish. I know they would never harm any pleco fry. I have one exception and that would be Nannostomus beckfordi. N. beckfordi is a little atypical for a pencilfish. Despite their small mouth they can pick at fry too much and they don't mind hunting on the bottom. Most Pencifish are much more surface oriented and less likely to spend time near the bottom. N. eques is a very peaceful secies which always tilts up at a 45* angle relative to the surface. They would be my first choice.

I am trying to breed a pair of wild Apistogramma sp. It is hard to say if they are a form of agassizi, gephyra or something else altogether.
They are almost like intermediates between the two. I gave them a small inverted clay flower pot with an opening too small for any of the plecos to enter and eat any eggs. I hope to catch them shortly after they spawn, remove the eggs for artificial hatching and remove the pair. I'm a little short on tank space for breeding Apistos and had to try doubling up this time.

[Easystreet]

Apistomaster,

The cherry shrimp is a very interesting idea. The problem would be plants. In my planned set up and am going without plants. I am attempting to create a slice of the xingu where its all rocks. The only vegetation would be algae. There will be plenty of hiding places in the tank for them via caves and crevices. I worry though without the plant cover they may over stress and die off rather easily. How would they fair in water flow thats moving 12x the tanks volume per hour?

If they had plenty of hiding spaces would they thrive? Are the plants as needed as I suspect?

-Jason

[apistomaster]

At least some free floating plants like Hornwort or Najas are needed if you want to have large shrimp colonies but I have successfully maintained modest self-sustaining Cherry Shrimp colonies where their primary source of food was the same as I fed the fish.